TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
TO THE SPEAKER OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

July 12, 2000

Dear Mr. Speaker:

I write to urge you to bring the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) to
the floor for a vote before the August recess. Last month, the Senate,
in a strong bipartisan showing, voted over-whelmingly to pass this
legislation that would strengthen federal hate crimes law. As the
Senate vote demonstrates, passing hate crimes legislation is not a
partisan issue. It is a national concern requiring a national response.
Now it is time for the House to do its part to ensure that strong hate
crimes legislation becomes law this year.

Since this legislation was introduced in November 1997, our country has
witnessed countless acts of bigotry and hatred. In June 1998, James
Byrd, Jr., an African-American man, was brutally dragged to his death.
In October of that year, Mathew Shepard, a gay college student, died
after being beaten and tied to a fence. In July 1999, Benjamin Smith
went on a racially motivated shooting spree in Illinois and Indiana. At
the end of this hate-fueled rampage, Ricky Byrdsong, an African-American
who was former basketball coach at Northwestern University, and Won-Joon
Yoon, a Korean graduate student at Indiana University, were killed, and
eight others were wounded. In August 1999, Joseph Ileto, a native of
the Philippines and U.S. postal worker, died at the hands of a gunman in
Los Angeles. This same gunman also injured five persons, including
three children, at a Jewish community center. Finally, this year there
were two killing rampages in Pennsylvania. In March, an
African-American man shot and killed three white men. In April, another
man murdered an African-American man, a Jewish woman, two Asian-American
men, and an Indian man. We must take action now to stop these acts of
violence.

This legislation is absolutely necessary because hate crimes are
fundamentally different from other crimes. Victims are targeted simply
because of who they are -- whether it is race, color, religion, sexual
orientation, disability, or gender. These acts of violence affect
entire communities, not just the individual victims. This legislation
would provide more tools to State and local law enforcement to
investigate and prosecute hate crimes. It would also expand protection
to include hate crimes based on sexual orientation, gender, or
disability.

I ask the House of Representatives to follow the bipartisan example of
the Senate by passing hate crimes legislation before the August recess.
We must send a message that hate crimes will not be tolerated, and that
one more hate crime is one too many.